The General Assembly cancelled the fall veto session.

It does not appear that the General Assembly will return to Springfield before January possibly for a lame duck session prior to the swearing in of the new General Assembly on January 13, 2021.

The December 18 edition of the Illinois Register did not contain any proposed or adopted rulemakings by the Illinois Department of Revenue or adopted rulemakings by the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.

The Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity proposed amendments to the rules on the Illinois Film Production Services Tax Credit Program. DCEO describes the rulemaking as follows:

"The proposed amendments aim to close a loophole tax credit applicants found exploiting the statutory requirement that productions shoot at least one day of principal photography in Illinois to qualify. Under the current rules, applicants only have to report the post production vendor and not who they employ. This allows those Illinois post production vendors to hire out of state employees (since post work can be done anywhere) and still receive credit on all post production expenses, where production spending is only qualified as to Illinois residents. The changes to the rules provide greater transparency in ensuring that applicants are only receiving credits on services provided in Illinois by Illinois residents. The proposed amendments also clean up and clarify language in the rules." 

No new tax-related cases this week.

No new decisions were issued by the Tribunal this week.

One new case is of interest. Two or three weeks ago, I discussed Clair Brothers Audio Systems, Inc. v. Department of Revenue which deals with Enterprise Zone building materials exemption. You will recall that the case was not accepted for filing by the Tribunal because the taxpayers filed the case without representation by counsel.

The case has been refiled. The taxpayer is represented by David Dorner and Paul Bogdanski of Tax Institute member law firm Reed Smith.

The Auditor General issued the report of its Compliance Examination of the Tax Tribunal. The Auditor General once again found that contrary to law, the Tribunal has not established an office in Sangamon County. The Auditor General also determined that the Tribunal acts in an improper manner procedurally when it returns checks for filing fees when taxpayer petitions are not accepted. (This latter finding is a bit of a fight over technical compliance between the Tribunal and the Auditor General. In my estimation, the Tribunal has taken a practical approach to the issue, even though it may be inconsistent as a technical matter with state requirements.)

My latest column has been published in the Illinois CPA Society's Insight magazine. My column is a discussion of tax issues for non-tax experts. In this edition, I continue my examination of the Illinois property tax system. I discuss the constitutional limitations on providing property tax exemptions, discuss the proliferation of preferential assessments, and explain that exemptions and preferential assessments do not reduce the amounts levied by units of local government, rather they just shift the property tax burden to the property owners who do not receive exemptions or preferential assessments.